Copyrightability in General
Copyright protects original intellectual creations in the literary and artistic domain. The protected subject is the authorial expression embodied in a work, not the idea, fact, method, system, or discovery that the work may communicate.
A work is protected from the moment of creation. Registration, deposit, notice, publication, commercial release, or actual sale is not a condition for copyright to exist, although registration and deposit may have evidentiary and administrative importance.
The work need not be new in the patent sense, useful in the commercial sense, or excellent in the artistic sense. It is enough that the author independently created the expression and contributed at least a minimal amount of intellectual creativity.
Copyrightability is separate from ownership. A work may be copyrightable even if the identity of the owner, the existence of an employment relation, or the validity of an assignment must still be resolved under rules on authorship and transfer.
Original Intellectual Creation
Originality requires independent creation and creative expression. A work is not original when it is merely copied from another protected work, but it may still be original even if it resembles another work by coincidence, common source, functional necessity, or use of standard elements.
Creativity may appear in language, sequence, arrangement, selection, timing, visual treatment, musical phrasing, staging, camera angle, design choices, or other authorial choices. Mere labor, expense, mechanical collection, or accuracy in recording information does not by itself create copyright.
The threshold is low, but it is real. A purely routine form, a standard label, a bare list arranged in an obvious way, or a short phrase that lacks expressive choices ordinarily does not contain enough authorship to qualify as a copyrightable work by itself.
Copyright may subsist in expression even when the subject matter is factual, technical, legal, or scientific. A scientific article, map, technical drawing, database structure, or instructional manual may be protected as expression, but the facts, procedures, measurements, and functional instructions contained in it remain free for others to use.
Expression, Not Ideas
The idea-expression distinction is central to copyrightable works. An author may own the wording of a novel, the arrangement of a song, the drawing of a character, or the source code of a program, but not the general plot idea, musical style, artistic genre, programming logic, business method, or scientific principle behind it.
When an idea can be expressed in only a limited number of practical ways, copyright protection is thin. Protection then covers only the author's particular choices and does not prevent others from using the same idea, convention, instruction, layout dictated by function, or necessary terminology.
Public domain materials may be used by anyone, but a new work based on them may be protected if it adds original expression. The new protection covers only the added authorship and does not revive exclusive rights over the underlying public domain material.
Principal Classes of Copyrightable Works
The Intellectual Property Code gives a broad, illustrative enumeration of literary and artistic works. The list should be read functionally: protection follows the presence of original expression, whether the work is educational, commercial, artistic, technical, digital, or utilitarian in context.
| Class of work | Protected subject matter | Important limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Books, pamphlets, articles, and other writings | The author's language, structure, explanations, annotations, and expressive organization. | Copyright does not cover the ideas, doctrines, facts, or methods explained by the writing. |
| Periodicals and newspapers | Original articles, columns, photographs, layout choices, illustrations, and other expressive content. | News facts and events remain unprotected, although the particular written or visual report may be protected. |
| Lectures, sermons, addresses, and dissertations | The author's spoken or written expression, sequence of thought, and original presentation. | The ideas delivered to the audience are not monopolized merely because they were expressed in a protected lecture or address. |
| Letters and private communications | Original expression in personal, professional, or business correspondence. | Ownership of the physical letter or copy is different from ownership of copyright in the expression. |
| Dramatic and dramatico-musical works | Dialogue, scenes, stage directions, characters as expressed, dramatic sequence, and integration of music with action. | Stock situations, general themes, and theatrical conventions remain available to others. |
| Choreographic works and entertainments in dumb shows | Original sequences of movement, gesture, timing, staging, and expressive physical arrangement. | Individual dance steps, athletic moves, or commonplace gestures are not protected apart from an original expressive sequence. |
| Musical compositions, with or without words | Melody, harmony, rhythm, lyrics, arrangement, and other original musical expression. | Musical ideas, styles, genres, scales, standard progressions, and common rhythmic patterns remain free for use. |
| Works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving, lithography, and similar visual arts | Original visual expression, composition, proportion, texture, form, color treatment, and artistic design. | Copyright does not protect the mere subject depicted or the functional engineering solution behind a structure. |
| Original ornamental designs and models for articles of manufacture, and other works of applied art | Artistic or ornamental features applied to useful objects. | Functional features, mechanical advantages, and utilitarian methods are outside copyright even if the useful article is attractive. |
| Illustrations, maps, plans, sketches, charts, and three-dimensional works relating to geography, topography, architecture, or science | Original selection, visual treatment, symbols, arrangement, and explanatory presentation. | The underlying locations, dimensions, scientific facts, and technical data remain unprotected. |
| Drawings and plastic works of scientific or technical character | Original visual expression in technical representations, models, and explanatory designs. | The technical process, machine, device, or principle represented is not protected by copyright as such. |
| Photographic works and works produced by analogous processes | Original choices in angle, lighting, timing, framing, focus, composition, staging, and processing. | The object or person photographed is not owned by the photographer merely by reason of the photograph. |
| Audiovisual and cinematographic works, and works produced by analogous processes | Original sequencing of images and sounds, direction, editing, cinematography, script integration, and audiovisual composition. | Underlying works embodied in the production may have separate copyrights and may require separate authorization. |
| Pictorial illustrations and advertisements | Original artwork, graphic composition, copy, layout, and expressive visual treatment. | Product claims, commercial ideas, selling methods, and trademark significance are governed by other doctrines. |
| Computer programs | Original expression in source code, object code, structure, sequence, and organization to the extent they reflect authorial choices. | Algorithms, programming languages, protocols, functions, methods of operation, and results produced by the program are not protected as copyright expression. |
| Other literary, scholarly, scientific, and artistic works | Original expression not falling neatly within a listed category. | The catch-all category does not erase the limits on ideas, facts, systems, official texts, and non-original matter. |
Derivative Works
Derivative works are copyrightable because they contain new original expression based upon one or more preexisting works. Protection may attach to a translation, dramatization, adaptation, abridgment, arrangement, or other alteration when the new version reflects intellectual creation beyond mechanical copying.
A derivative work does not destroy or reduce the copyright in the original work. The derivative author's copyright covers only the new expression added, while the author or owner of the underlying work retains rights over the preexisting expression.
When the underlying work is still protected, the preparation or exploitation of a derivative work generally requires authorization from the copyright owner of the underlying work. A person cannot acquire valid copyright in an unauthorized adaptation to the extent that the adaptation appropriates protected expression unlawfully.
When the underlying material is in the public domain, the adapter need not obtain permission to use that material. Copyright may still protect the adapter's translation choices, arrangement, commentary, annotations, illustrations, editing, or other original additions.
Compilations and Collections
Collections of literary, scholarly, or artistic works, and compilations of data or other materials, are protected when they are original by reason of selection, coordination, or arrangement. The creativity lies in what was chosen, how it was grouped, how it was ordered, or how the materials were presented as a whole.
A compilation copyright does not create copyright over uncopyrightable facts or materials included in it. Others may use the same facts or public domain items if they do not copy the protected selection, coordination, arrangement, annotations, or expressive presentation.
Directories, databases, tables, indexes, anthologies, curated collections, and reference materials may be copyrightable if their organization reflects original judgment. If the arrangement is dictated by alphabet, chronology, regulation, industry standard, or simple completeness, protection may be narrow or absent.
Published Editions
A published edition may carry a limited copyright in the typographical arrangement of the edition. This protects the publisher's layout, formatting, typesetting, pagination, and presentation of the published text as an edition, apart from any copyright in the underlying work.
The right in a published edition does not make the publisher the author of the underlying work. If the underlying text is public domain, the public may still use the text, but should not reproduce the protected typographical arrangement of a particular edition without authority.
This protection is especially relevant to printed codes, textbooks, annotated materials, compilations, and reproduced classical or public domain works. The protected matter is the edition's presentational arrangement, not the law, doctrine, literary classic, or public domain text contained in it.
Applied Art, Useful Articles, and Industrial Design Overlap
Copyright can protect original ornamental designs or models for articles of manufacture and other works of applied art. The protected feature is the artistic expression that can be perceived apart from the utilitarian function of the article.
A useful article may therefore contain both protected and unprotected elements. The shape of a lamp, chair, bottle, textile pattern, package, jewelry piece, toy, or product graphic may be protected as artistic expression, while the mechanical function, ergonomic solution, manufacturing method, or useful performance remains outside copyright.
Industrial design protection, patent protection, trademark protection, and copyright protection may overlap in commercial products, but each protects a different legal interest. Copyright protects original expression; industrial design protects ornamental industrial appearance under its own requisites; patents protect technical inventions; trademarks identify commercial source.
Labels, packaging, logos, icons, and advertising art may be copyrightable if they contain original artistic or literary expression. Their ability to distinguish source is a trademark question, not a copyrightability requirement.
Architecture, Plans, and Technical Works
Architectural works, plans, drawings, sketches, models, and related technical materials may be copyrightable when they embody original expression. Protection may cover plans, elevations, models, renderings, and expressive architectural design choices.
Copyright does not protect standard design constraints, building codes, engineering requirements, functional room layouts, construction methods, or conventional features dictated by use. The same practical design problem may be solved by different architects without infringing if protected expression is not copied.
Technical drawings and scientific models are protected as expressive representations. The machine, process, formula, medical fact, geographic feature, or scientific principle represented in them remains available unless protected by another branch of intellectual property law.
Computer Programs and Digital Materials
A computer program is treated as a literary work because it consists of instructions expressed in a form capable of causing a computer to perform a function. Protection may cover source code and object code when they embody original expression.
The copyright in software does not give ownership over the programming language, mathematical formula, algorithm, interface idea, command structure, business process, or functional result. These matters may be used by others if they are expressed independently and without copying protected code or protectible structure.
Digital format does not reduce copyrightability. E-books, websites, databases, digital photographs, audiovisual files, graphic interfaces, software documentation, and online learning materials may be protected if they contain original expression.
A website may contain several works at once: text, photographs, icons, layout artwork, code, audiovisual material, databases, and compilations. The overall site may be protected by its original selection and arrangement, but navigation concepts, business functions, and data as such remain outside copyright.
Materials Outside Copyright Protection
Several materials are outside copyright even when they appear in a copyrighted work. The exclusion preserves public access to knowledge, legal commands, facts, methods, and raw information.
| Excluded material | Effect |
|---|---|
| Ideas, procedures, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, discoveries, and mere data | They may be described in copyrighted expression, but the substance itself remains free for use, study, application, and independent expression. |
| News of the day and miscellaneous facts having the character of mere press information | The factual occurrence may be reported by anyone, but the original article, photograph, or video report may still be protected. |
| Official texts of a legislative, administrative, or legal nature, and official translations | The public must be free to read, reproduce, quote, and rely on official legal texts because they state binding norms or official government action. |
| Works of the Government of the Philippines | No copyright subsists in a government work as such, subject to statutory rules on prior approval for profit-oriented exploitation of certain government materials. |
| Short phrases, titles, names, slogans, familiar symbols, standard forms, and commonplace elements lacking authorship | They generally fail the originality threshold, although some may be protected under trademark, unfair competition, contract, confidentiality, or other law when the requisites of those doctrines exist. |
Government Works
No copyright subsists in a work of the Government of the Philippines. The rule covers works made by government officers or employees as part of their regularly prescribed official duties and reflects the public character of official government materials.
The government may still impose prior approval and conditions for profit-oriented exploitation of certain government works, except for materials that the law makes freely usable for any purpose, such as statutes, rules, regulations, and official materials delivered in courts, administrative agencies, deliberative assemblies, and public meetings.
The government may also receive and hold copyright by assignment, bequest, or other transfer. A privately authored work does not lose copyright merely because the government later acquires it or republishes it, unless the law or the parties' arrangement produces that result.
Distinctions Affecting Copyrightability
A physical copy is different from the copyright in the work embodied in it. Buying a book, painting, photograph, disk, or file transfers ownership or possession of that copy only to the extent agreed, and does not by itself transfer the right to reproduce, distribute, adapt, or publicly communicate the work.
Authorship is different from subject matter. A portrait photographer may own copyright in the photograph's expressive choices, but the sitter does not become the copyrighted work; a writer may own an article about an event, but not the event; a programmer may own code, but not the problem solved by the code.
Copyrightability is different from infringement. A work may be copyrightable, but infringement still requires copying or unauthorized exercise of protected rights; conversely, copying unprotected facts, ideas, official texts, or public domain matter does not infringe copyright even when it may raise ethical, contractual, or regulatory issues.
Copyright is different from plagiarism. Plagiarism concerns attribution and academic or professional integrity, while copyright concerns legally protected expression and exclusive economic or moral rights. A use may be plagiarism without infringement, infringement without plagiarism, both, or neither, depending on what was copied and how it was used.
Copyrightable works should also be distinguished from neighboring rights. Performances, sound recordings, and broadcasts receive related protection, while the musical composition, lyrics, script, choreography, or audiovisual work embodied in them may have separate copyright protection.
Effect of Copyrightability
Once a work qualifies as copyrightable, the law recognizes exclusive rights over protected uses of the expression, subject to limitations and exceptions. The owner may control reproduction, adaptation, first public distribution, rental in specific cases, public display, public performance, and other forms of communication to the public as applicable to the type of work.
The scope of protection depends on the nature of the work and the amount of original expression it contains. Highly creative works usually receive broader protection, while factual, functional, technical, or compilation works often receive thinner protection limited to the author's particular expressive choices.
The classification of the work matters because different rights, exceptions, ownership presumptions, and related rights may apply to different types of works. The initial question remains constant: whether the material is an original intellectual creation in the literary or artistic domain and whether the part claimed is protected expression rather than unprotected subject matter.